Pak minister blames India for attacking SL team

A Pakistani minister accused India of being behind the attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in the city of Lahore on Tuesday, saying the attackers had crossed into Pakistan from India.

"The evidence which we have got shows that these terrorists entered from across the border from India," Sardar Nabil Ahmed Gabol, minister of state for shipping, told private Geo television.

"This was a conspiracy to defame Pakistan internationally." "This incident took place in reaction to 26/11," he said referring to the Mumbai attacks in November in which at least 170 people were killed.

"It is a declaration of open war on Pakistan by India," said the minister, who is not one of the government's official spokesmen, but belongs to President Asif Ali Zardari's party.

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India to launch its very own Aircraft Carrier

India kicked off its most ambitious warship building project on Saturday. It began the process of assembling its first indigenous aircraft carrier.

This 40,000 ton carrier will also be India's largest warship. Only three other countries have made warships of this size.

It's a giant leap for a country, 80 per cent of whose military hardware is of foreign origin.

What is the big deal about India's first aircraft carrier which will be built here at these docks? This will herald the arrival of India as an expeditionary power, capable of launching air strikes 8,000 nautical miles away from its shores. And all this muscle will be Swadeshi.

Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sureesh Mehta said, " Sixty more warships to be made in India over next 10 years. This will not be the last indigenous carrier. "

India's very own carrier will be a floating airstrip, 260 metres long, 60 metres wide and as high as a 14-storeyed building. From its two take-off runways, it will be able to launch as many as 30 aircraft on the high seas, including MiG-29K fighters and the Light Combat Aircraft. Its 4 gas turbines will produce 80 MW of power, enough to light up a small city. It will need a crew of 1,600 and is expected to eventually cost about $3 billion before it is handed over to the Navy in 2014.

Call it the Lego block building approach. About 875 blocks of metal will be welded together into an aircraft carrier. The 400-odd blocks which have been built so far occupy two entire grounds at the Cochin Shipyards"

Ahead of the polls, putting his stamp on this carrier on his home turf is A K Antony's last hurrah as Defence Minister. He also announced a major post-26/11 revamp of India's coastal security

Six years down the line, India's indigenous aircraft carrier could be a metaphor for national capability, perhaps the biggest brand ambassador for the made in India tag.

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RIL-RPL Merger Approved

The board of Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) on Monday agreed to merge with its refinery subsidiary Reliance Petroleum Limited (RPL), making it one of the largest refiners in the world.

The merger takes effect from April 1, 2008, and the "scheme shall be subject to approvals of shareholders and creditors and sanctions" of the Bombay High Court.

The share swapping between RIL and RPL has been agreed at 1:16, i.e. RPL shareholders will get one RIL share in return of their 16 RPL shares.

RIL also gave nod to extinguishing Treasury Stock. The decision was taken at today’s meeting of RIL and RPL boards.

Earlier, RIL board had announced to buy 5% stake in Chevron Energy after the latter decide to quit RPL. RIL had bought 22.50 crore equity shares or five percent of RPL's equity from Chevron. This would raise its stake in the company to 75.38 percent.

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Now Nokia will make Laptops

Finnish Mobile giant, Nokia, would like to jump on the netbook bandwagon, according to the firm's CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

In a television interview with Finnish broadcaster YLE, Kallasvuo noted his company was "looking very actively" at plans to make little laptops.

"What we know as a cellphone and what we know as a PC are in many ways converging", said Kallasvuo who added millions of people were losing their Internet virginity for the first time on their mobile phones.

The announcement comes just a week after Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where PC makers including Acer, HP and Lenovo unveiled new smartphone offerings, muscling in on what Nokia sees as its territory.

During his keynote at MWC, Kallasvuo had hinted at the shift by calling Nokia's latest offerings "mobile computers" rather than smartphones.

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100,000 Indians will return from US in next 3 years

About 20,000 Indians have already returned home after losing their jobs overseas due to the global economic crisis.

Now according to new study, as many as 100,000 Indians and an equal number of Chinese will return to their native countries in the next three to five years, a move that will greatly boost their economies and undermine technological innovation in America.

The study on immigration by a team at Duke, Harvard and Berkeley universities led by Vivek Wadhwa, an Indian-American technology entrepreneur turned academic, says "America's loss is the world's gain".

There are no hard numbers available on how many have returned, but anecdotal evidence shows that this is in the tens of thousands, says Wadhwa, executive-in-residence for the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University and fellow at the Labour and Worklife Programme at Harvard Law School.

"With the economic downturn, my guess is that we'll have over 100,000 Indians and as many Chinese return home over the next three-five years," says Wadhwa. "This flood of western educated and skilled talent will greatly boost the economies of India and China and strengthen their competitiveness.

"India is already becoming a global hub for R&D. This will allow it to branch into many new areas and will accelerate the trend," he says.

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100,000 Indians will return from US in next 3 years

About 20,000 Indians have already returned home after losing their jobs overseas due to the global economic crisis.

Now according to new study, as many as 100,000 Indians and an equal number of Chinese will return to their native countries in the next three to five years, a move that will greatly boost their economies and undermine technological innovation in America.

The study on immigration by a team at Duke, Harvard and Berkeley universities led by Vivek Wadhwa, an Indian-American technology entrepreneur turned academic, says "America's loss is the world's gain".

There are no hard numbers available on how many have returned, but anecdotal evidence shows that this is in the tens of thousands, says Wadhwa, executive-in-residence for the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University and fellow at the Labour and Worklife Programme at Harvard Law School.

"With the economic downturn, my guess is that we'll have over 100,000 Indians and as many Chinese return home over the next three-five years," says Wadhwa. "This flood of western educated and skilled talent will greatly boost the economies of India and China and strengthen their competitiveness.

"India is already becoming a global hub for R&D. This will allow it to branch into many new areas and will accelerate the trend," he says.

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Force India aims for regular points this season

Force India gave their new Mercedes-powered Formula One car its debut in Spain on Sunday with team owner Vijay Mallya targeting regular points after a barren 2008.

The new car has a Mercedes engine and McLaren gearbox after the Silverstone-based team announced in November it was terminating a previous deal with Ferrari.

"I would like to see a strong start, rising to points mid-season and a definite improvement in qualifying. Regular points finishes should be the aim," he said in a team statement.

"This is the year we have to deliver. We are not here to make up the numbers, I want to be pushing all the way," he added.

Italian Giancarlo Fisichella, now in his 14th season in Formula One, drove the first laps in the VJM02 at the Jerez circuit.

Fisichella and German team mate Adrian Sutil failed to score a point last year and Mallya expected the new partnership with McLaren-Mercedes, who won the drivers' title with Lewis Hamilton, to show a marked improvement.

"To be brutally honest, I would not be happy if we didn't show some much improved, and much needed, performance this season," he said, adding that McLaren's success would provide a real benchmark for his team.

Due to the late change in engine supplier, Force India are one of the last teams to run their 2009 car and Sunday's test was almost 100 days since Fisichella had last been behind the wheel.

Fisichella was confident the new car would deliver, particularly with the most significant rule changes the sport has seen in decades.

"It would be good to see all the teams mixed up and to be able to fight for points," said the former race winner with Jordan and Renault. "If the car is good, why not even for the podium?"

Fisichella is one of the few drivers to have raced previously in Formula One on slick tyres, in 1997, but the Roman said that would not give much of an advantage.

"In the 12 years since then the cars and the tyres have evolved so much you can't really compare the two periods," he said.

More of a disadvantage was the comparative lack of testing, with some of Force India's rivals -- with the exception of Honda and Toro Rosso -- out on track with their new cars from early January.

"It's important to drive as much as you can before the start of the year to get a feeling with the car and try and establish a good set-up," said Fisichella.

"It's not easy in just four days, especially with the new rules coming in this year. We are just going to have to try and get as much as we can from these eight days before the season."

The season starts in Australia on March 29.

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ISRO's Gen next Rocket under way

As the country readies itself for putting a human on a space flight, scientists are busy developing next generation rockets that can carry more astronauts and put heavier satellites in orbit.

The Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk III), expected to be launched in the next three years, will give the country self-sufficiency in launching the entire range of satellites.

"If everything goes through successfully, we can attempt a launch by 2011 beginning," GLSV Mk III project director N Narayan Moorthy said.

Scientists at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram will carry out testing of all engines this year.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientists also said that the GSLV Mk III will enable them to send "heavier and more meaningful" probes to Mars and also help send more astronauts on a single mission.

ISRO is planning to use the current version of the GSLV in the human space flight it plans to undertake in 2015.

"In case we use Mark III, we can send three persons instead of two by the regular GSLV," an ISRO scientist said.

The GSLV is capable of launching 2.5-tonne satellites and ISRO has to depend on the European Space Agency to put in orbit its communications satellites.

The GSLV Mk III will also enable ISRO to pack more transponders on a single flight, thus making it a cost-effective option for satellite launches.

The rocket will shape up as a giant vehicle towering over 44 meters, four meters in diameter and carry almost three times more fuel than the current GSLV Mk II.

Moorty said that the government has sanctioned about Rs 2,500 crore for the programme and infrastructure development for the project.

In the last seven years, ISRO has built new testing and manufacturing facilities at a cost of Rs 1,500 crore.

The new rocket, which can put a four tonne satellite in orbit, will help Antrix Corporation, ISRO's commercial arm, to offer the cheapest space launches in the space market. The regular GSLV can put 2.2 tonne satellites in orbit.

Antrix Corporation made Rs 1,000 crore this year by launching and building satellites for foreign firms and institutions and is expected to grow at the rate of 20 percent every year.

ISRO crossed key milestones last year with the successful launch of Chandrayaan-I in October and earlier in April when it put into orbit 10 satellites on a single Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), becoming the first country to achieve the feat.

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Sonam and Penelope Cruz - Seperated at Birth?

Actress Sonam Kapoor is certainly becoming a hit with several Bollywood directors approaching her for their upcoming ventures.

But the lady also seems to have become the latest charm of big fashion houses and designers. Reports reveal that Sonam has become the only B-town actress to wear an outfit specially designed for her by global fashion house.

Sonam recently looked like quite a fashion diva when she came to an award function wearing a specially-designed gown by Chanel. The actress said, "I just kept staring at the beautiful, basic but simple white gown they sent me. I think I'm the first Indian celebrity to be dressed by Chanel in Bollywood. I'm so excited. I felt like Cinderella before the ball. Never before have I been so excited about dressing up for an event."

According to a source, a lot of designers are comparing Sonam to Penelope Cruz. And the actress takes it as a huge compliment, and says that she wears what she’s comfortable in.

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